


Field Studies

by TigerDragon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fake Marriage, Hand & Finger Kink, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Other, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 15:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1903977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/TigerDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murder, mayhem and a little anarchy are run of the mill for John Watson since he met Sherlock Holmes. The two of them have been shot at, nearly blown up and generally gotten themselves into one messy situation after another. So if someone told him that a blue dress, dinner in a French restaurant and three coats in a cab were going to ensure his personal doom, he'd probably laugh at them. </p><p>Life (and London) have a sense of humor that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Studies

The crime scene was your average one-bedroom flat - beige carpet, tiny kitchenette, what could only generously be called a sitting room. Sofa, telly, lamp, DVDs, food and wine - terrible wine, in John’s opinion, so maybe that’s what set the murderer off - junk mail on the table. The bathroom was slightly more interesting for having pinkish bloodstains in the tub and the few spatters on the floor.

“God, I hope you solve this fast,” he said to his phone, panning across the tiles. “This is actually boring, not just you-boring.”

“I do not have a special definition of boring,” Sherlock sighed over the speakerphone. “It’s just that the rest of you don’t understand how dull it is living with you. Turn all the way around one more time and then show me the bedroom.”

John sighed too. “Yes, yes, what a cross it is for you to bear.” The front part of the flat continued its exceedingly dull existence as he passed the camera over it again. That done, John opened the door to the bedroom, then stopped in his tracks.

“Beanie Babies.”

There had to be hundreds - maybe thousands - of the toys, covering every surface in the room. The bed, dresser, floor, wardrobe, shelf after shelf after shelf overflowed with the things. Everywhere he looked were dozens of bright, inescapable colors, so garish it made John’s eyes water.

“Well.” The doctor rubbed his temples with his free hand. “That’s certainly different.”

“Actually, the portion of the population that chooses to surround themselves with objects that evoke faces - particular watching eyes - is quite significant. The same totemic impulse that might have once been satisfied with portraits or decorative plates now moves on to stuffed, commercialized frivolities that none the less provide the socialized pressure of being observed. Consider the three cases of ritual slayings just in the last year that involved...”

Rolling his eyes, John settled into the filming. To no one’s surprise, Sherlock was picky about it, so the doctor was using their pre-agreed snaking pattern to take in each wall. It was going to take a while, due to the higher detail of a room full of junk.

“These had better hold some sinister meaning,” John muttered to himself. “‘Oh, me? I spent my Saturday filming a dead person’s room full of Beanie Babies. How was your weekend?’”

“You’re not going on one of those dreadful date things again, are you? Wait, go back. No, another three centimeters. Wait.” A brief silence, then the sound of Sherlock’s head hitting the padding of the taxi’s seat. “Oh, god, how depressingly mundane. I need a cigarette. Two. Three. Ask the cabbie if he has any.”

“Sherlock,” John said in a half-patient tone, “the cabbie is right in front of you. I am up the five flights of stairs you couldn’t be bothered to climb, and if you actually smoke I will tell Mycroft.”

“Bastard,” Sherlock muttered darkly. “You would, too. Fine. If I tell you where to get fourteen thousand quid of cocaine, can I at least have one without you sulking?”

John picked a toy off the shelf and turned it over in his hands. “How can you tell there’s cocaine in them? I don’t see anything odd.”

“John,” Sherlock groaned as though in the midst of the torments of the damned. “John, John, John. Put that one down - I’m sure he was using it for personal satisfaction in a way you’ll feel the need to sterilize yourself after handling. The second row of toys are knock-offs. Cheap stitching, subtly misprinted labels, less satiny. No real collector would mix them in with the real thing - unless he was pumping all his drug profits into improving his collection. That brown bear off on the side table above all the others is worth two thousand quid all by itself. They’re full of drugs and money.”

John couldn’t be sure if Sherlock was just fucking with him, but he dropped the commemorative giraffe anyway. “Were you Googling that or have you actually devoted parts of your mind palace to collector prices of Beany Babies? And no, you may not have a cigarette. Slap on another patch if you really need it.”

Giving one more glance around the room, John left for the stairs.

“If I can’t have a cigarette, I’m not answering that question,” Sherlock sniffed. “Now go tell Anderson that he and his techs missed a fortune in drugs. I want to hear him squeal like a pinched schoolgirl.”

Texting the forensics officer one-handed, his other on the bannister, John shrugged. “Oh, okay. I guess you’ll just have to live with it when I blog about your Beany Baby hard drive space.”

“You wouldn’t. That’s blackmail, John! I’m surprised and impressed.”

He grinned. “Maybe I should do it more often.”

“Obviously spending time around me is providing a necessary corrective to that dull moral cant you picked up in the army or wherever it was.” Sherlock rolled over - John didn’t know anyone else who could do that so audibly - and groaned. At least he was reasonably sure that the cabbie hadn’t been subjected to anything worse than Sherlock’s dramatic poses and whinging. “There is _nothing_ interesting in London today, John. What are the criminal classes doing with themselves?”

“Not thinking of you, clearly.”

By the time Sherlock finished a lengthy diatribe on the thoughtlessness of criminals everywhere and lapsed into sulky silence, he’d reached the ground floor and opened the door of the taxi that had been his until Sherlock had taken over the back seat by sprawling across it in a way that reminded him of a particularly irritable cat. Other than a bit more rumpling, the world’s only consulting detective was about how John expected - Spencer Hart suit in criminal disorder, Belstaff coat much too big, black hair in loose disarray, wide blue-gray eyes over sharp cheekbones, narrow mouth pursed unhappily.

“Find me something to do, John,” Sherlock Holmes groaned, dropping her phone dramatically to the floor of the cab. “Find me something to do before I start a one woman crime wave just to stop being bored.”

“Oh, please,” John said, nudging her up and out of his seat. “Your pride couldn’t handle being the world’s second consulting criminal.”

“I would do it better,” she muttered, tucking herself into the seat opposite without bothering to pull on a seatbelt. “Much better.”

* * *

In the lengthy and various catalog of things that Sherlock Holmes hates - a litany of sins which has never been fully explored but includes such various items as pickled herring and Saturday evening telly and the particular sound that cars passing over M25 at rush hour on a Thursday happen to make - there are four cardinal crimes which, once committed, demand immediate and absolute retaliation.

The first is to suggest, at any time and in any way, that she requires protection or is otherwise incapable of handling anything she might wish to handle (including but not limited to armed assailants, boxes on high shelves and appearances in front of public audiences). Additional penalties will be inflicted with prejudice if this suggestion is accompanied in any fashion by a reminder that her stature is in any way diminutive or insufficient.

> “Sherlock, wait!” John’s hiss carried through the cemetery as he jogged to intercept her. Putting himself between her and the door to the mausoleum she was about to sneak into - the locks had already been broken a few minutes before - her new companion put his hands on her arms and pulled her into a crouch. She was in the process of extracting herself and preparing several savaging remarks certain to bruise his self image and promote insomnia when he interrupted her train of thought with an inopportune observation.
> 
> “It’s mined.” John pointed to what looked like a rectangular shadow on the doorframe at about waist height. “I’ll shoot it out. Once it’s blown, we can take them by surprise.”
> 
> “Don’t be an idiot. Disarming is easier. Less noisy, too.” She gave him a light shove to move him and set about it. They did, in fact, take the smuggling crew by surprise and she was reasonably certain he was actually in the flat when she got around to thanking him a few days later.

The second is to get along too well with her brother. Anyone Mycroft likes is definitely troublesome and likely to induce the desire to test her theories about surviving the radical separation of the trachea.

> “You look well,” said Mycroft. _I see that you are eating and sleeping more regularly, no doubt thanks to John, without whom you are only marginally able to feed and clothe yourself._
> 
> She narrowed her eyes and deliberately kicked out of her shoes, scratching the leather in the process. It made his eyes narrow unhappily, which pleased her. “Had your suit retailored again, I see.” _And how is the crash dieting, brother dear?_
> 
> “Astute as always.” _Really, Sherlock, the monotony of your insults grows tiresome._ He smiled. “Your Detective Inspector has been having a good quarter. Plenty of cases closed, yet he looks younger. More relaxed.” _Lestrade, at least, appreciates that you’re less of a trial when you’re showing off for your doctor._
> 
> She arched an eyebrow. _I am doing nothing of the kind._ “And Anthea? It’s been ages since I saw her supervising surveillance.” _Have you driven off yet another pathetic government subsidised imitation of an emotional attachment?_
> 
> “Oh, she’s been working on something else for me. She’s quite indispensable.” _Please. I haven’t driven off anyone, unlike you._  He sipped his tea.
> 
> Sherlock's eyes narrowed involuntarily, which was dreadfully frustrating. She'd been five the last time she fell victim to that particular tell, but Mycroft had a way of wriggling under her skin. "Attractive, too. Shame you never bring her by." _I might be able to find ways to amuse myself with her. That doesn't bother you, does it?_ Deliberate implication was tricky, but not that tricky. She'd been watching daytime telly again, and it was really quite informative about some things.
> 
> He allowed himself a smug little quirk of his lips. Damn. “Really? You do hate visitors so.” _You’re slipping, Sherlock. Sexual implications only work if you have a sexuality._
> 
> “I might make an exception.” She was bluffing with nothing in her hand, but she did have something up her sleeve. It was one of John’s expressions - the one he usually got when he didn’t think anyone was watching him look at a woman he found attractive. It’d only taken her a couple of hours of practice to find the right way to arrange it so it looked natural on her face.
> 
> Which was to say that she’d figured out how to leer a week ago, and Mycroft didn’t know it.
> 
> “Hm,” he reflected. “Well, you do seem to have warmed up to John. Perhaps you’re becoming less reclusive.” _Sherlock and John, sitting in a tree...._
> 
> “John?” The thought startled a laugh out of her, and one of her first unprepared comments to her brother in years. “You can’t possibly be serious, Mycroft.”
> 
> He shrugged eloquently. “You enjoy living with him and seek out his companionship. As neither of those have happened before, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to anticipate further...unprecedented events.”
> 
> “No.” Her voice flattened, and she shifted forward in her chair so that she wasn’t stuck looking up at him quite so obviously. _You don’t talk about John. You don’t theorize about John. You don’t speak to John. If you speak about John with other people, I will find out and retaliate._
> 
> Mycroft blinked - he was surprised. For all his needling, he hadn’t come to the correct conclusions about John’s importance. Now he was reflexively picking up details of her and the flat while he took a moment to recalculate.
> 
> “I see.” _As you wish. For now._
> 
> “Good.” _Don’t push your luck, even if you are my brother._
> 
> “Oh, good, you’re awake.” John trotted in from upstairs, phone in his hand. “There’s a potential client. Says her employees have all gone missing.” His gaze flicked between the two Holmeses, then he threw Sherlock’s coat to her before shrugging into his own. “Thanks for understanding, Mycroft. Feel free to finish your tea.”
> 
> “Or don’t.” She was smiling. John being brisk with him just annoyed Mycroft so beautifully. “I’m sure paperwork is piling up every moment you dawdle.”

The third is to imply that there is a problem which logic and reason are not sufficient to solve. Sherlock Holmes is an ardent believer that absolutely everything has a scientific, rational and/or chemical explanation, and that any difficulty in arriving at a solution is simply a matter of not having yet arranged the elements of the problem into a sufficiently logical progression.

> “Sherlock.” John’s voice was, unusually for a situation that didn’t involve immediate threat to life and limb, one hundred percent serious. “A word.”
> 
> Without waiting for an answer, he dragged her over to a corner of the room. The married couple were busy sobbing, so it wasn’t like they needed to go far for privacy.
> 
> “Probably someone has tried to teach you this, but I imagine you’ve deleted it. No, listen to me,” he demanded as she reached for her phone. “Is there any purpose served - any at all - by telling them that their kids died slowly and painfully?” His whole body was quivering with controlled tension, voice clipped and hands were clenching into fists, glaring down at her in a way that reminded her that John was capable of behavior most people were intimidated by. Unusual for him to be directing that at her, even unintentionally. Clearly he was trying to impress the seriousness of his feelings on her.
> 
> “It’s a fact. I thought it was understood that a better grasp of the facts is objectively valuable.”
> 
> He exhaled a large volume of air, nostrils flaring, jaw clenched. “A fact, yes. But it’s objectively valuable to people who can be objective about it, Sherlock. You or Lestrade or Molly. When a child dies, there is nothing objective about the parents’ experience. All you did was make their grief more hellish.”
> 
> “There’s really no need to be so dramatic about it,” she objected, though the sound of the sobbing was admittedly beginning to grate.
> 
> “Isn’t there?” John’s control of his volume was slipping, intentionally or not. “I’ve tried presenting this as an objective fact before, Sherlock, so maybe yelling at you in front of the people you hurt  might make an impression!”
> 
> “John,” she said, lowering her voice instead of raising it, “have you ever found any evidence that anyone yelling at me made an impression?”
> 
> He opened his mouth angrily, then closed it again. Ran his hand through his hair. “No,” he said, quiet again, “but I’m running out of ideas and this is important.”
> 
> Either he was getting to her or the crying was. “Fix it.”
> 
> His eyes widened in outrage for half a second before he closed them. “I can’t,” he said after what he probably thought was ten seconds but was more like eight point five. “This isn’t fixable. I can apologize, but it’s not enough.” He paused. “When you solve it and they arrest the killer, that will help.”
> 
> “I can do that.” It wasn’t exactly her usual tone, but John was still giving her that look. It was frustratingly uncomfortable. “I will do that. Now go make them stop. It’s unpleasant.”
> 
> He glared at her for another two seconds, then went back to the parents. She registered his placating voice before she lost herself in the problem again.
> 
> The next time they had parents in the flat, she let him do the explanations. It seemed simpler for everyone.

She is presently revising her theory that _everything_ can be solved with logic. People are complicated and frustratingly immune to reason. More often than not, she checks John for cues that they have entered irrational territory.

Fourth - and probably the one most likely to induce contemplation of your murder - is to draw attention to the fact that Sherlock Holmes is, in fact, a woman in any way which would suggest that this is problem.

* * *

“That is a dress.” John was staring and knew it. Not his awestruck stare, not his waiting for a response stare, not even his I-should-know-better-by-now-but-still-can’t-believe-you-just-did-that stare. Possibly his just-awoke-from-drugged-stupor stare. “Where are we going and why are you wearing a dress?”

“The Enfield blackmailer,” Sherlock explained as though to a very small child. Actually, she probably would have been less patient with the child. “I am reliably informed that he is going to be attending a school fundraising function. I secured tickets for us under the ruse that we are evaluating the school.”

“Evaluating...?” What did she mean? Not as a donor. The rich didn’t wear middling-quality, modestly-cut yet still quite flattering blue wrap dresses. More like something you’d wear to a PTA -

“Oh. Oh, no.”

“We have three children,” she informed him, relentlessly calm. “Jack, Chloe and Thomas.”

“Oh my god.” Dropping into his chair, he leaned his head in his hands. It was terrifying when Sherlock pretended to be normal - although before their friendship was two weeks old he’d resigned himself to never being sure if she was lying to him. Only this time she’d be pretending to be his wife and the mother of his imaginary children. She might even call him a pet name.

“He’s dangerous, yeah?” he said hopefully. There had to be some way he could get through the evening. “Won’t go without a fight?”

“Probably not. He might even be armed. There is the distant possibility he might prefer not to be taken alive.” Sherlock fidgeted with her wrap and her purse in a decidedly un-Sherlock way. “You’ll be impersonating a serving army officer. I am a surgeon. The right combination of means and sympathy. People like sympathy.”

John huffed a disbelieving laugh. This was going to be one of the days that his willingness to follow Sherlock made him question his own sanity. “Yes. They do. So, shall I change, or...?”

“I’ve picked clothes for you. You’re wearing them.” His eyebrows started to go up, and she shrugged. “I placed them in the optimal position for you to select them. It only required two copies of the outfit to ensure it would be your first choice.”

He frowned. Glanced down at his clothing, noting that they were, in fact, nothing he’d bought himself but close enough to his usual style that he hadn’t noticed when he put them on. “Christ. How often do you make changes to my wardrobe?”

“Only when I need to for cases. Or when it seems amusing.” She started for the door, blithely unconcerned. “I called us a cab.”

She was out the door before he could think of something to say that would in any way change the situation - of course, he wouldn’t think of anything later, either - so he just followed her out, resolving to pay more attention to his things in the future.

He wasn’t sure which was more unnerving - Sherlock behaving like herself while in suburban mother costume, or the moment before the cab doors opened when she went fully into character.

“Dear,” she said, pleasantly exasperated, “we're going to be late. You don’t want to make a bad impression, do you?”

He gaped. Then shook himself, touched his Browning through his jacket for reassurance, and took a couple of deep breaths after he paid the cabbie. When he fell into step next to her and thought about putting an arm around her or a hand at the small of her back, his brain started to shut down in protest at the sheer incongruity of it and he opted for stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“So, love,” he began. “Do we just chat it up until you see something, or do you have something else in mind?”

Then she leaned up and whispered in his ear in a way that - given the height difference - made him awfully aware of her modest cleavage and just about shut his brain down again for an entirely different reason. “I arranged to leak compromising photographs,” she murmured. “I expect him to approach me when he recognizes me. Then we convince him he ought to confess to Lestrade to avoid trouble with my jealous husband. Simple.”

“I’m jealous now, am I?” He smiled at the people they passed, wondering how long it would take someone to call him out as an impostor. “I can do that. Overprotective, even.” That part wouldn’t even be acting. Especially if Sherlock kept up with that body language.

She shifted against him, then tugged his hand out of his pocket and tucked it around her waist. “Physical closeness suggests intimacy. In cases of couples, male nearness can indicate possessive attachment. Try to keep up.”

Instead of saying anything - his usual retorts were sluggish at the moment anyway - John just let out a breath and tried to look natural. Pretending that his hand was resting on the curve of some other woman’s waist was probably his best chance.

Living with Sherlock and her disregard for social norms was one thing. After the fourth time he’d come home to her standing naked in the kitchen, he’d managed to extract her agreement to wear her robe in the common areas of the flat, and he compromised by letting her deduce at him through the shower curtain. It was fine.

Then there was the inevitable body contact while they were on cases - usual cases, anyway. The running into each other, getting crammed together in a hiding space, pushing each other out of the way of danger - all of that was part of the thrill of the hunt. That was fine, too.

But this? As soon as he’d realized how mad Sherlock was - and how aggressively asexual - John had very, very carefully boxed up his attraction to her and put it in a back corner of his mind that, for the most part, he could ignore outside of his fantasy life.

Their current suggestion of intimacy was making it plain that the box in question was rather larger than John remembered. That was not fine. Not at all.

“Oh, look, refreshments. I’ll go get us some.”

It was just short of totally unbearable that she maintained the fond, slightly nervous expression of a devoted wife keeping an eye on her less-than-party-ready husband. He walked back more slowly than necessary. Scanning the crowd and trying to suss out the blackmailer was a good way to distract himself.

She was talking to a middle-aged Indian woman when he got back. Apparently Jack and Chloe were hoping to be on the school robotics team and Sherlock had been reading his medical journals again. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by the amount of detail she was putting into her description of thoracic surgery or terrified by where she might have learned some of the more visceral bits.

He smiled at the woman and handed Sherlock a mineral water. He almost gave his real name when introducing himself, which produced enough adrenaline to settle his nerves. After a few minutes, the woman smiled and excused herself, leaving them alone.

“John,” Sherlock murmured as she stepped in to kiss his cheek lightly (which didn’t help the adrenaline), “you wouldn’t be embarrassed to stare at the dress if we were married. Would you? I’m not entirely clear on the social protocol here.”

He pasted on a smile and patted her shoulder. “Depends on how obviously sexual the stare is. Do you see him yet?”

“Back corner. Gray pinstripe suit, nervous smile, stray red hairs on his suit that are almost certainly from a coerced encounter with the head of the Association. Note the slightly stiff way she’s walking - indicative of joint discomfort in the knees.”

His own problems forgotten for a moment, John went still. “Coerced? Is there a reason why I shouldn’t beat him right now?”

“Wait five minutes and it’ll look better. Not to mention a better chance of avoiding trouble with Lestrade.” Her eyes met his for a moment, and then her lips curved up at the corners. “But you can take your time before we let him turn himself in if you want.”

Then she kissed his cheek and started across the room, giving every indication of making the social rounds but leaving the memory of that smile burned in behind his eyelids.

“Jesus,” he whispered. Had it always been this bad? His self-deception was much stronger than he’d thought.

And was that subtle sway to her walk part of the disguise, or was it hers and just usually hidden under layers of coat?

Better to think of it as part of the disguise.

He found someone to talk to - a slightly portly man who was only too happy to go on and on about his daughter’s tennis tournaments who had the only benefit of being oblivious to John’s circling him to keep Sherlock in sight. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter that Thomas had decided he wanted to be a professional footballer when he grew up. Knowing Sherlock, he’d probably get a bollocksing for it whether it mattered or not. That should have been a more annoying thought that it was. Maybe he ought to call his therapist and try to explain.

Yes, because that would end so very well.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Frowning, he looked to Sherlock - or where she had been ten seconds ago. Shit.

_Veranda. Come now._

Without even a flimsy excuse, John left the tennis dad and didn’t quite run to the outside doors.

They were standing against the railing at the end of the veranda, Sherlock backed against the corner, doing an excellent impression of a woman who was going to be willing to hide a thousand pounds a month or more in blackmail money from her husband and was terrified half out of her mind. If he hadn’t known her well enough to notice her hand was behind her back - probably holding her phone - he might even have bought it for a few seconds.

As it was, it just made him angrier. Well, fine. He could use that.

“What’s this?” He stalked across the veranda, glaring at the man who radiated charm and menace in equal measures. “You two are awfully cozy.”

“Oh!” Sherlock’s expression did a pretty good gamut of shocked, frightened and relieved. “Mister Andrews was just explaining to me how ... remarkable... the school is...” Her voice trailed off as she shifted away from Andrews and edged along the railing.

John’s hate of the man was made worse by the way his own brain was responding to Sherlock’s acting. Of course he knew that she wasn’t really scared and that if she had been it would look very different. But the caveman part of John saw a woman he cared about under the onslaught of a large man and went more than a little berserk.

Before he was really aware of crossing the space, he found himself violently shoving the man backwards. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Luke Andrews was a big man - several inches taller than John - but he wasn’t trained. He probably hadn’t been in more than one or two drunken fistfights in his life. Normally, that would have bothered John more. Fortunately, Andrews made it easy on him (the him who’d be thinking about this later, not the one counting ways to pound the arrogant prick’s face in). “We can talk about this like reasonable men,” he said, “or you can talk about it with my solicitor.”

The bastard didn’t know what kind of trouble he was in.

“Yeah, I’m not very reasonable when it comes to her. You’ve got one chance to explain yourself before I kick the piss out of you.”

There was a part of him that really appreciated the fact that Luke didn’t get the point until John had put a couple of punches into his kidneys.

“Maybe,” Sherlock murmured, “you might like to talk to the police about what we were discussing. And anyone else you’ve been discussing confidential material with. Or we could spent a few more minutes with my husband out here.”

Flexing his hand, John noticed that he’d need to bind his knuckles later. He gave Andrews his hunter’s smile. “Well? Me or the cops?”

Thirty minutes later, they were leaning up against a police car outside while John iced his hand and Sherlock glared at anyone who seemed to be thinking about remarking on her dress.

“He wasn’t a complete idiot,” she said, for no apparent reason in particular. “He’s only going to be pissing blood for a week.”

“Too bad,” John murmured. “Bastard deserves more damage than that.”

“I did tell you we could wait.” She fished in purse and came out with a slim black package, then flicked the top open. “On the other hand, I picked his pockets. Want one?”

He hesitated, then nodded. When she held out the box he snatched the cigarettes away from her and passed them to Anderson.

“I’ll still tell your brother.”

“No spousal loyalty? I’m disappointed, John.” She followed the pack with her eyes for a moment, then glared at him mildly. “Terribly. Really.”

“Sorry, dear,” he replied sourly. Now it was back to Sherlock-in-a-dress weird, rather than Sherlock-playing-his-wife weird. Better, he guessed. Or, he realized as she flopped back on the hood of the car with a total lack of regard for the fact she was wearing a dress and shawl instead of a suit, worse. Apparently the graceful, sinuous motion was hers, and not just in her walk.

Definitely worse.

“Right, then, I’m going home if we’re done.”

“Mm. Done enough.” She left the wrap sitting on the car and flagged down a cab with her usual post-case energy. In this case, it included bouncing on her toes. Right next to him. Where he could see down her dress.

John exhaled and turned his head, staring firmly at the street, but it was too late. The image of her bouncing cleavage was stuck firmly in his brain.

 _Think boring thoughts, Watson._ He tried that for a while, but kept derailing himself with various images from the evening, or the feel of her lips on his cheek, or the curve of her waist under his hand. As they climbed into a taxi, John switched to thinking about all the various ways Sherlock was a terrible flatmate.

That helped a little. At least until Sherlock curled up in her side of the cab and tucked her knees up against her chest. Which was not the first time she’d ever done that, but it was the first time she’d ever done it while wearing a dress.

“Sherlock. Please. For once remember that you are a woman.”

She turned her head, eyes narrow and not at all pleased, and then got a good look at his face. Her expression went blank for a moment, the way it did when she was processing faster than her face would follow.

“John,” she finally murmured, “your pulse is elevated and your eyes are dilated.”

Looking at a spot slightly above her shoulder, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yes, well done.”

“I was not under the impression that you considered me sexually desirable.”

He had to chuckle. “Not your area. Though it’s gratifying to know I haven’t been totally transparent.” He shook his head. “Look, this doesn’t have to change anything. Well, much. I’d appreciate not being able to see your knickers.”

“I was not aware that my knickers were a subject for taboo fascination.” Thankfully, she at least lowered her legs and fixed her damned skirt.

“Thanks. Now I feel like the subject of an anthropological study.”

“It would be original research,” she observed, and he couldn’t tell from her expression if she was genuinely contemplating the idea or just playing silly buggers with his head. At least that was familiar territory.

“Just don’t publish anything with my real name in it.”

Any hope he might have had that she wasn't going to keep right on messing with him now that she’d found a new button died the moment she reached up and took her hair down, then leaned against the seat in one of her lounging, thoughtful poses. “Subject confidentiality is very important in field studies.”

“Sherlock.” He had to clear his throat. “Seriously. I’m your friend, not a field study. This is not on the list of things I can put up with.”

“‘This’?” She stayed exactly where she was, but she didn’t do anything even more provocative. It was possible that counted as progress. Maybe.

“This,” he gestured impatiently in her general direction. “Experimenting with how I respond to your hair, or clothes, or body language.”

“Why is it different from replacing your clothes or testing substances in your foods?” As far as he could tell, it was her I'm-actually-asking-this voice. Definitely progress.

Slumping back against the seat, John tried to put into words a concept most people understood instinctively. He was getting better at that.

“Because human relationships are much more important to me than clothes or even surprise drug trials,” he said softly. “I can handle unrequited attraction to my best friend, but not if she turns it into a science project. That’s too painful.”  

She still hadn't said anything in reply by the time the cab dropped them off in Baker Street, but she did walk behind him on the way to the door. He was pretty sure it was on purpose, too, so maybe he’d gotten through a little.

That, or his life was about to get much more uncomfortably interesting.

* * *

A text alert roused John from half-asleep to mostly conscious. Carefully, he fumbled on the side table for his phone. In the past week he’d knocked the damn thing onto the floor about twice a day. Not to mention the stitch he’d pulled reaching for it on day three home from the hospital. The pain wasn’t so bad, but Sherlock’s dramatics over his self-repair of the suture had been bloody unbearable.

Greg’s number lit up the phone screen. _Oswald’s trial is set for next month. Still with us. Nobody wants to set bail for the bastard._

John smiled vindictively as he typed. _Good. Wanker deserves it._ He'd been stabbed before. It was never fun, but the other times had healed relatively quickly. Not this one. This time he’d been fighting a drug runner who pushed John into the Thames after pulling the knife out. Years of combat training were the only reason why the doctor had managed to take the blade through his left forearm rather than his lung. Luck had kept Oswald from slicing an artery or tendon. So rotting in prison sounded fair. Generous, even.

Of course, what Sherlock had done to the man’s right shoulder, left elbow and - possibly a bit excessively, but John wasn't inclined to judge - to both knees was pretty good insurance that even if someone did make bail, Mister Oswald would not be taking a triumphant walk anywhere more exciting than the loo without considerable help.

Sometimes John worried that Sherlock’s total disregard for ‘the finer points of those law-things’ was rubbing off on him. Of course, he was the one keeping a totally illegal firearm in his bedside table, so it was possible he hadn’t required all that much rubbing....

He vetoed that line of thought. Things had been pleasantly normal since the blackmail sting slash PTA meeting, and he was trying not to think about anything that might or might not be boxed away in his subconscious. Sherlock, for her part, was behaving herself. Or had just reverted to trousers-wearing, coat-flapping logic-machine type. It was hard to tell.

So he was spending his time lying in bed, fighting off a nasty infection with the help of a shit-ton of antibiotics and a variety of peculiar smoothies which Sherlock insisted had health-restoring properties. Given the way they tasted, he wasn’t sure he wanted his health restored that badly, but it was that or try to get takeaway delivered to his room. His depth and regularity of sleep after the shakes suggested that there was more than kale and goji berry juice in them, but he had no doubt that Sherlock knew each and every medication he was on and had picked her drugs not to interact.

Maybe Mrs. Hudson would collude with him to get some real food. God, he missed pad thai.

“Enough time has elapsed for you to eat again,” Sherlock announced from the door, incongruous as usual in bare feet and expensive slacks (he tried not to think too much about the mostly unbuttoned dress shirt under the tidily fixed-up waistcoat). She presented him with the shake, waited for him to take it, then continued waiting with an impatient expression while he suffered through swallowing it.

“I think I’m acclimating to whatever you’re putting in there. Greg’s text woke me.” He shuddered through another swallow. “Ugh. That is the last of those I’m drinking. You can drug my takeaway next time.”

“You realize that will make doseage more difficult to measure,” she informed him crossly, as though that was obviously the most serious problem with the situation.

“I. Don’t. Care.” Glaring, at least, seemed to take less out of him than yelling. He’d felt hollowed-out since the attack, everything taking far more energy than it should have. Sleeping really was the best way to spend the time without going completely mad. Sherlock’s stubbornness wasn’t the only reason he accepted her ‘help.’

He was pretty sure he passed out in mid-glare. There was a definite discontinuity, anyway, because when he expected the sun to be up it was down and Sherlock was no longer standing by the bed and there was a warm, sharp-boned but not entirely uncomfortable weight pressed up against his ribs and back which had definitely not been there when he started the glare.

Between him and the wall. Had she crawled over him?

And, yes, there was her fine-boned hand resting carefully on the bicep of his injured arm, fingertips stained with something inky today, nails clipped short as always. Blinking didn’t make either the hand or the warmth go away - nor would hallucinogens have the same effects as the sedatives - so presumably she was actually in bed with him.

“Sherlock?”

“Mmmph,” she confirmed against the space between his shoulderblades.

“Why are you cuddling me?”

“Mphvicl...” She stopped, then squirmed against his back until her mouth was more or less level with his ear, his skin coming alive wherever she touched him, the close warmth of her breath sending electricity down his spine. He estimated he had about two minutes before getting hard became really distracting. “Reliable studies indicate that physical closeness reduces stress and promotes healing.”

“That’s...sweet of you,” he cleared his throat, trying to sound calm and rational. It was difficult with her pressing her body along his and - was she nuzzling his hair? “But please go back to your own room or the sofa or wherever.”

“It’s good for you,” she murmured, sounding more than half asleep. “Besides, it’s comfortable.”

“Not for me.” He shifted, trying to scoot away from her and getting her leg hooked over his hips for his trouble. “Sherlock.” The calm voice was definitely not happening. “Get out of my bed now, Sherlock.”

She squirmed around for a moment - oh, god, was she wearing anything except a shirt? - and finally wound up with her head propped up on one hand and looking at him in the dark with eyes that were definitely fully awake now. “I don’t understand the problem,” she said, as briskly as if they were discussing seasoning on eggs, or the head in the fridge.

Maybe it was the drugs, or being confined to his room for a week, or that he’d finally gotten to the end of that particular rope, but John dispensed with subtlety entirely.

“Because I want to have sex with you, you unbelievable idiot, and this is bloody torture.”

He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d actually seen Sherlock surprised enough to be speechless. Well, now he was going to need a second hand.

“Oh,” she finally said. “I see.”

He waited. She didn’t move.

“Yes, wonderful, top marks. Now go away.”

“Right.” A pause. “You’ll want to close your eyes.”

He did. There was a brief rearrangement of bodies, bedclothes and Sherlock’s hair which he tried desperately not to pay attention to and failed miserably. He kept his eyes closed until he heard the door open and then close again.

Not for the first time, he thanked his years in the military for his ability to wank silently.

They didn’t talk about it when she brought him drugged pad thai in the morning.

* * *

He should have seen it coming, really. His flatmate had been expressing even more disdain for Penelope than for his other girlfriends, and he’d caught the calculating look on Sherlock’s face as he left to pick up the lawyer. So when the detective swooped into the French restaurant and sat herself next to John, what happened next wasn’t really a surprise.

“You don’t like French food,” she said, viewing the table as though suspicious of the safety of the contents, “and there’s a murder in Shrewsbury. Plate glass window, guillotine, locked all around. Pedestrian, but you’ll make it at least a little interesting. And why is your phone off, anyway?”

“It’s called ‘privacy’, Sherlock. It means I don’t want to talk to you.” He’d stopped bothering to add things like ‘I’m on a date’ or ‘you’re upsetting people’ as reasons. Sherlock simply didn’t care.

“But I want to talk to you,” she said, as though that explained everything. “And besides, I know where you are anyway so it’s not as though I’m not going to find you, you’re just making me work for it and that’s very tiresome.” She fished his phone out of his pocket, turned it back on and then presented it to him - unlocked, which meant he had to change his password again - with her row of texts on the screen. “You see?”

John pressed his hand to his forehead. “Go away, Sherlock. I'll solve crimes with you tomorrow.”

Penelope frowned at the detective. “I see what you meant about her social skills.”

“The crime scene will have deteriorated by then with Anderson’s people trooping all over it with their clumsy hands and their plastic bags and their _procedures_.” If Sherlock was paying any attention to Penelope, she wasn’t showing it. She seemed entirely focused on explaining to John why today was superior to tomorrow for crime solving. She even stamped her foot for emphasis.

“Go on your own, then,” he interrupted. It didn’t help. Sherlock said several very (suspiciously) flattering things about John’s entertainment value while investigating crimes before he lost his patience enough to interrupt again. “That’s not what this about, is it? Christ, Sherlock, I get to have some time away from you. Stop acting like a preschooler who hates sharing her toys.”

“The entire purpose of having things of one’s own is that one is not obliged to share them,” Sherlock sniffed, folding her arms in a way that made him wonder just how terrifying she’d actually been as a preschooler. God help her nanny if she’d ever gotten hold of a chemistry set.

“My god,” Penelope marvelled. “I don’t think I’ve ever met such an arrogant, entitled arsehole. You don’t _own_ him, detective.”

“Are you still talking?” Sherlock turned her head to look at Penelope, and the gesture was so reptilian that John was reminded - not for the first time, unfortunately - of Moriarty. “You can’t possibly think that you have anything useful to contribute to the conversation. Solicitors are such a dreary lot anyway, so conventional, and working for Slaughter and May must be such a comedown in the family business. Does your father known how many bottles you go through at home by yourself? And you ought to be more careful with credit, never know how much trouble that will get you into, and you really ought to have paid a better class of tattoo removal artist for the...”

John’s hand shot up, but he hadn’t managed to catch the eye of the security guard before Sherlock shoved him against the chair hard enough to rock it back on two legs and straddled his thighs, kissing him with the consummately fervent attentiveness of a really inventive lover. It was so un-Sherlock that he had the mad, impossible desire to laugh in her mouth.

He pushed her away with force if not violence, and shook his head. “Got that from an actor?”

The stunned silence from Penelope was starting to break into outraged splutters.

Sherlock’s arms still wrapped around his shoulders, she frowned. “They do it differently? The call girl control group looked like they were doing it the same way. Bastard owes me for his case.”

Then John did laugh. Of course Sherlock would go about learning seduction scientifically.

“If you don’t care about the intent behind it, it worked fine. Now, go.” He turned to look for the bouncer again. Or the maitre d. Or a waiter. Anyone, really.

“You’re giving her constructive criticism on sticking her tongue in your mouth?” The solicitor was standing now, hands braced on the table. “Are you out of your bloody mind?”

“That’s probably a matter of subjective opinion,” Sherlock said, ridiculously unconcerned, while she fished John’s hand back down from the air and started absently nibbling on his fingers, “but I think John is one of the sanest men I know.”

John’s mouth was open, but damn if he didn't forget what he’d been about to say. Sherlock’s eyes were on Penelope like a hawk’s on a mouse, but all the while her delicate lips moved against his calloused fingertips, tongue flicking out to taste him. Once she’d done this with each digit, she moved back to his index finger and started laving her tongue over his nails as if she was investigating anything that might be hiding in the keratin.

It was unspeakably erotic and he was reasonably certain she wasn't actually thinking about doing it at all.

All at once images flashed in his mind: her lips lingering on a spoon after she’d finished eating, pens clenched between her teeth, her craving for cigarettes. Sherlock had an oral fixation. She wanted John’s fingers in her mouth, not to spite Penelope or get him to come with her to the murder - although she was taking full advantage of the timing to access those side benefits as well. Sherlock _wanted_ John’s hand in her mouth.

Christ, he was already hard.

Mouth gaping, Penelope managed to tear her eyes from what Sherlock was doing to look at his face. Look at him with renewed anger and, now, disgust. She collected her purse and paused long enough to give a venomous farewell.

“You two deserve each other. Good night.”

Sherlock had already dismissed her from consideration, apparently. Her tongue dabbed at the space between his thumb and forefinger lightly, and she hummed to herself. “You have cordite on your hands, John. Do we need more rounds?”

Her words went straight to his cock, and he moaned low in his chest even as he fought for coherence. “Uh. No. I put in for some yesterday.” A corner of his mind wondered when they’d be thrown out of the restaurant. His quickly-fading situational awareness registered people staring. Then she pressed her teeth into the pad of his thumb, and it was all he could do not to pull her back onto his lap. “God. Sherlock.”

“Not usually equivalently stated,” she murmured, and then shifted enough to look up at him - god, with his thumb still in her mouth - before taking what he sincerely hoped was mercy on him and letting go of his hand. “You don’t like French food,” she said as she stood up. “We have pho at home. We can pick it up on the way.”

Staring up at her in disbelief - more proof of his compromised brainpower - John fumbled for his jacket. “I’m somewhat useless at the moment.”

“Ah. Yes. We’ll take steps,” Sherlock informed him briskly while she led him out of the restaurant and flagged down a cab. They were already settled in the back when he realized she’d walked him out without paying the tab.

He didn’t really have time to be properly upset about that before she dragged one of his hands - left, this time - to her mouth and started torturing him again.

“Step one?” he asked shakily.

“Mmm,” she breathed, then shifted her head enough to push his index finger into her mouth all the way to the last knuckle.

There might have been words in the sounds he made, but he had honestly no idea. The soft, wet heat of her mouth and the laser focus of her attention pushed everything else out of his head. It left him so out of his mind, in fact, that the ten minutes she spent in 221B while the car waited was barely long enough to start stringing coherent thoughts together.

The first one was that it was funny that the third-best blowjob of his life had been given to his finger rather than his prick

The second was _Why is Sherlock bringing an extra coat along with the pho?_

“89 Newpark Road, Shrewsbury. Don’t stop and don’t ask any questions and there’s a hundred quid in it for you,” Sherlock told the cabbie as she settled back into the taxi. She set the pho on the floor near John’s feet, out of the way, and then draped the coat over his lap. “It’s a three hour trip, John.”

“O...kay?” His addled brain presented him with several possible explanations for her statement, but he discounted all of them as ridiculous. That was, until she slid to the floor of the cab and pulled one end of the extra coat over her shoulders.

John’s eyes widened. “Sherlock? Why?”

The edge of the coat lifted enough for him to see her eyes. “You’re going to be useless until your hormonal system is properly reset. And I’m curious.”

Then she started on his trousers.

“Oh god.” If she hadn’t been doing amazingly sexy things to his hand a few minutes earlier, he might have gotten himself together enough to refuse. But even if he could take care of himself, it didn’t mean he had to, and he’d given up early on the delusion that he wouldn’t do pretty much anything for Sherlock. Including being her experimental subject.

He was fully hard again by the time she pulled his cock out of his pants.

She stopped for a long moment, just breathing on him, and he groaned at the sweet torture of it. He pulled the jacket up to see if she’d gotten distracted by something. The glint in her eyes suggested that she’d been testing his patience.

“Sherlock, you bitch,” he gritted. “ _Please_.”

“Language,” she said, more amused than objecting, and then wrapped her mouth around him and made a deliberate show of working her way down him. It was absolutely done with malice aforethought, but that wasn't what told him he was absolutely doomed.

That was the moment when she pushed him against the back of her throat, hesitated and then pushed more firmly. Not for the sensation - which was unspeakably good - but for the way her eyes half-lidded in concentration. The greatest deductive mind in the world was currently focused on getting John Watson off.

“Fuck,” he hissed. He had to close his eyes and take a number of deliberate breaths to keep himself from coming thirty seconds after she’d started. Fortunately, Sherlock didn’t take that as a challenge. Timed arousal-to-orgasm drills and data charts flitted through his head until she pulled her lips firmly along his shaft, swirling her tongue over each inch of him before reversing direction and doing it again.

“God, yes, Sherlock,” he said. Probably. Paying attention took a back seat to refraining from grabbing her hair and grinding into her throat. His hands flexed on her shoulders instead.

She made a sound, then. It almost got lost in the road noise, in the heavy rasp of his breathing, but years of heightened situational awareness picked it out as important and made sure that he heard it.

It was the same little sigh of relieved satisfaction that always slipped out when she managed to steal a lit cigarette long enough for a couple of drags.

He was too far gone even to warn her before the orgasm hit him, obliterating everything but what she was doing to his cock and brain.

When the world started coming back, Sherlock was sprawled across the back seat with a total disregard for seat belt laws and licking lightly at his fingertips again, her normally pale cheeks warm with heat and her eyes languidly closed. It was fucking adorable and brought up all kinds of tender feelings he only reluctantly admitted to himself. Because once he had, he couldn't avoid the logical explanation.

He was in love with Sherlock Holmes.

After a moment of horrified awe (or was it awe-struck horror?) John chuckled. Of course he was. Had been since shortly after they’d met. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t been acting like it. What had Jeannette said? That he was a great boyfriend. Just not to her.

“Interesting study?” he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

Sherlock laughed softly against his fingertips. “Oh, yes. Very. Definitely requires follow-up research after we're finished in Shrewsbury.”

His smirk broadened into a grin. “Careful. Give me enough time to recover and talk like that could make me useless again.”

She only smiled, kissed his palm and tucked her Belstaff around her. The quiet moment lasted about forty seconds before she was tapping away at her phone and complaining - volubly - about the stupidity of Scotland Yard and the amateur cryptographic community. When John fished the pho off the floor, cracked it open and started eating, she didn't seem to notice he'd stopped replying.

Other than a pleasant ache in his ribs and the suspicion that he was going to miss sleep even more than he usually did for the rest of the week, the world resumed its usual mad, wonderful shape.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sentiment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1934994) by [TigerDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/TigerDragon)




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